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Academics at Oxford University are using Voltaire and other historical defenders of free speech to mark the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. BBC News, 7 January 2016

In the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo a year ago, a group of French academics put aside their work to assemble a collection of major 18th-century writing promoting tolerance; the final product – including writings from Voltaire to Montesquieu – was a hit in newspaper kiosks across France. Now, to mark the anniversary of the murders in Paris, more than 100 students and academics from Oxford University have come together to translate the extracts into English. The Guardian, 7 January 2016

Edited by Caroline Warman, lecturer in French, Tolerance: The Beacon of the Enlightenment has been issued by Open Book Publishers as a free online book, and it features the inspiring words of 40 writers, including Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Kant and Locke. Times Higher Education, 7 January 2016

Inspired by Voltaire’s advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française d’étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University.

1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789
2. Voltaire, ‘Prayer to God’, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
3. Three aphorisms from Denis Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts, 1746; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748; and Voltaire, Portable Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
4. Nicolas de Condorcet, 'On Admitting Women to the Rights of Citizenship', 1790
5. John Locke, Letter on Toleration, 1686
6. Denis Diderot, ‘Aius Locutius’, from the Encyclopédie, 1751
7. Montesquieu, ‘On the Enslavement of Negroes’, from The Spirit of the Laws
8. Jean-François Marmontel, ‘Minds are not Enlightened by the Flames of an Executioner’s Pyre’, from Belisarius, 1767
9. Three aphorisms from Diderot The Philosopher and Marshal ***’s Wife Have a Deep Chat, 1774; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, or On Education, 1762; and Frederick the Great of Prussia
10. Abbé Grégoire, On Freedom of Worship, 1794
11. Immanuel Kant, ‘Dare to Know’, from What is Enlightenment?, 1784
12. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, 1784
13. Pierre Bayle, On Tolerance, or A philosophical Commentary on these Words of the Gospel, Luke XIV. 23, Compel Them to Come in, 1686
14. Alexandre Deleyre, ‘Fanaticism’, from the Encyclopédie,1756
15. Four aphorisms from Louis de Jaucourt, ‘Intolerant’, from the Encyclopédie, 1765;William Warburton, Essay on Egyptian Hieroglyphics, 1744; Rousseau, Émile, or On Education; and Anon., ‘Refugees’, from the Encyclopédie, 1765
16. Jean le Rond d’Alembert, On the Suppression of the Jesuits, 1765
17. Jeanne-Marie Roland, Personal Memoirs, 1795
18. Evariste de Parny, The War of the Gods, 1799
19. Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, 1791
20. Pierre Bayle, On Tolerance, 1686
21. Voltaire, La Henriade, 1723
22. Three aphorisms from Diderot, The Eleutheromaniacs, 1772; Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762; and Moses Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, 1786
23. Montesquieu, The Persian Letters, 1721
24. Abbé Grégoire, 'New Observations on the Jews and in Particular on the Jews of Amsterdam and Frankfurt', 1807
25. Rétif de la Bretonne, Paris Nights, 1788
26. Three aphorisms from Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts; Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments, 1786; and Rousseau, The Social Contract
27. Voltaire, Candide, 1759
28. d’Alembert, ‘Geometer’, from the Encyclopédie, 1757
29. Rabaut Saint-Étienne, ‘No Man Should Be Harassed for His Opinions nor Troubled in the Practice of His Religion’, 1789
30. Three aphorisms from Diderot, ‘Letter to My Brother’, 1760; Voltaire, Treatise on Metaphysics, 1735; and Rousseau, The Citizen, or An Address on Political Economy, 1765
31. Diderot, Extract from a Letter to Princess Dashkova, 3 April 1771
32. Voltaire, ‘Free Thinking’, from Dictionaryof Philosophy, 1764
33. Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, ‘Reflections on Slavery’, from A Voyage to the Island of Mauritius, 1773
34. Pierre de Marivaux, The French Spectator, 5 October 1723
35. Louis-Alexandre Devérité, Collected Documents of Interest on the Case of the Desecration of the Abbeville Crucifix, which Occurred on 9th August 1765, 1776
36. Anon., The Private and Public Life of the Posterior Marquis de Villette, Retroactive Citizen, 1791
37. Three aphorisms from Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts; Marivaux, The French Spectator; and Pierre Jean George Cabanis, On Sympathy, 1802
38. Leandro Fernández de Moratín, ‘A Philanthropic Congregation’, 1811
39. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws
40. Voltaire, ‘On Universal Tolerance’, 1763
41. Three aphorisms from Diderot, Philosophical Thoughts; Marivaux, The French Spectator; and Voltaire, ‘Fanaticisme’, from Portable Philosophical Dictionary
42. Condorcet, Anti-superstitious Almanack, 1773-1774
43. Montesquieu, Persian Letters
44. José Cadalso y Vázquezde Andrade, Defence of the Spanish Nation against Persian Letter 78 by Montesquieu, 1775
45. Nicolas-Edme Rétif, known as Rétif de la Bretonne, Ninth Juvenal. The False Immorality of the Freedom of the Press, 1796
46. Condorcet, Anti-superstitious Almanack
47. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise, 1779
48. Three aphorisms from Germaine de Staël, Reflections on the French Revolution, 1818; Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments; and Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, 1782
49. Luis Guttiérez, Cornelia Bororquia, or the Inquisition’s Victim, 1801
50. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, ‘Fraternal Harmonies’, 1815
51. Diderot, Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage, 1772
52. Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoirs, posthumous
53. Three aphorisms from Alexandre Deleyre, ‘Fanaticism’, from the Encyclopédie; Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, 1789; and Voltaire, Letter to Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, 9 November 1764
54. Helvétius, Essays on the Mind, 1758
55. Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Portrait of Paris, 1781
56. Juan Pablo Forner, In Praise of Spain and its Literary Merit, 1786
57. Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, ‘The Two Persians’, 1792
58. Three aphorisms from Rousseau, Émile, or on Education; Voltaire, Letter to the King of Prussia, 20 December 1740; and Jaucourt, ‘Tolerance’, censored article from the Encyclopédie
59. Voltaire, On the Horrible Danger of Reading, 1765

Caroline Warman, Lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College, is the author of Sade: From Materialism to Pornography (2002) and has written widely on eighteenth and nineteenth century intellectual history. Caroline translated (with Kate Tunstall) Diderot's Rameau's Nephew published by OBP and winner of the British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies' 2015 prize for digital publication. She is currently preparing a book on Diderot’s late text, the Eléments de physiologie. She is also the translator of Isabelle de Charrière, The Nobleman and Other Romances (2012).
Caroline won the 2016 Oxford Teaching Engagement Award for leading the team translation of the texts collected in Tolerance by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University.

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